Category: News

PSR Interviews #18: Far-Right Local Governments and Civil Society: Findings from France and Italy – Seongcheol Kim

“The rise of far-right parties across Europe and their entrance into government at the local, if not regional or national, levels pose challenges for established civil society actors”, – writes Dr Seongcheol Kim ( Far-Right Local Governments and Civil Society: Findings from France and Italy – Seongcheol Kim, 2023 (sagepub.com). He analyses early findings from an ongoing research project based on two case studies of far-right local governments in small industrial towns in France and Italy: Hayange and Sant’Agata Bolognese. In this interview, Dr Kim provides insights into his research design and on how far-right parties influence civil society.

PSR: You suggest that a trend of “far-right parties making increasingly visible attempts to appeal to the world of labour and trade unions” is quite a new phenomenon. What are the roots of this process?

Dr Seongcheol Kim: As I write at the beginning of the introduction, this is hardly a new phenomenon. Parties like Vlaams Blok in Belgium and Front National in France openly courted organised labour with their May Day events in the mid-1990s. In Italy, the history of this courting goes much longer, not only with the experience of fascist corporatism but also the fact that the postwar Movimiento Sociale Italiano had its own trade union front, the CISNAL. When the MSI became Alleanza Nazionale, CISNAL turned into UGL, which is still the fourth largest trade union centre in Italy and has closely cooperated with Matteo Salvini’s Lega in recent years. In France, too, one could draw a longer arc with the long history of yellow unionism, which also fed into the pro-Pétain “Chartist” tendencies during the Second World War and provided a basis for the right-wing to far-right “independent unions” that developed a significant presence in parts of the automotive sector in postwar France.

In the context of Le Pen’s Rassemblement National and Salvini’s Lega, you discussed mainstreaming far-right politics. Could you clarify the meaning of this concept?

There is a sizable literature around the mainstreaming thesis, which I refer to in the paper. Scholars like Aurélien Mondon have shown how the FN (later RN) has come to take on an agenda-setting function in French politics, with governments of the centre-left and centre-right vying to outbid each other on issues like law and order and immigration. Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign and numerous measures taken by the Valls government were cases in point. But while the FN/RN has been consistently excluded from coalitions by other parties, the far right in Italy has been much more integrated into centre-right alliances since the mid-1990s, ever since Silvio Berlusconi formed an electoral bloc with Alleanza Nazionale for the 1994 elections. Notably, the Lega under Umberto Bossi eschewed a radical right image at the time but ultimately joined Forza Italia and AN in government (contrary to Bossi’s pre-election promise of “never with the fascists”). Even though that first coalition government was short-lived, the three-party setup has lasted with shifting accents up to the present, with Fratelli d’Italia taking up the post-fascist mantle in recent years and the Lega under Salvini having turned into an overtly radical right party.

In both cases, it seems clear that far-right local administrations are not interested in wooing established local trade unions with their deep roots in the industrial history of each region.

You analyse interviews conducted in Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, and Poland, focusing on two towns in France and Italy. What was the rationale behind that selection and your research design?

The six-country study was on far-right actors in the workplace with a focus on the automotive industry, featuring a case study of a factory in each country. The exploratory research design was based on a diverse-case selection geared toward examining a wide-ranging universe of national contexts to allow for an initial mapping out of far-right strategies at the workplace level, which was a novel contribution to the literature beyond the single-country studies that have been done previously. Within this wider research project, which was published as a book titled The Far Right in the Workplace (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), the Early Results article focuses on two towns in (or near) which the factory case studies for France and Italy were located, which were also selected due to the local context of far-right mayors who have been re-elected with overwhelming shares of the vote: Fabien Engelmann (FN/RN) in Hayange and Giuseppe Vicinelli (independent, later Lega) in Sant’Agata. 

Political rally in Rome, source: Flickr, FRANCO600D

How have European far-right parties generally affected trade unions and civil society actors at the local level in the countries you analysed?

This varies a lot across countries and localities, and it goes beyond the scope of this research. In the book, too, we examined the local level only in certain factory case studies where far-right actors of various stripes held the mayoralty, most notably in France, Hungary, and Italy. In France and Italy, the local contexts in Hayange and Sant’Agata Bolognese had some similarities as small industrial towns governed by the far-right after decades of left-wing rule (more so in Sant’Agata, with the Bologna area being the historical stronghold par excellence of the Italian Communist Party, whereas the Moselle region in which Hayange is located has always been more mixed). In Hungary, the situation is different altogether because Jobbik came to power in Dunaújváros and Eger (the two towns we examined) in alliance with centre-left parties as part of anti-Fidesz coalitions. Notably, trade unions and civil society practitioners in Hayange and Sant’Agata observed in the interviews a deterioration in relations with the local administration after the far right won the mayoralty, which I discuss in the article.

What were the more specific patterns you have uncovered in the case of small industrial towns in France and Italy, such as Hayange and Sant’Agata Bolognese?

A striking similarity between Hayange and Sant’Agata is the coexistence of two faces: on the one hand, the far-right-led town hall cultivates a caring image with highly visible measures for improving or prettifying the local infrastructure; on the other hand, there is a far-right politics of suppressing by various means (including financial pressure) civil society initiatives deemed unpalatable, such as left-wing cultural or charity associations. This latter aspect is even more pronounced in Hayange, which has gained notoriety for the town hall’s union-busting and the annual pork festival as a form of cultural exclusion of the town’s Muslim minority. It should be noted, however, that these experiences are hard to generalize even within these countries. Engelmann has always been something of a special case due to his left-wing past and the vindictive anti-trade unionism that he has become known for in office. With the RN winning mayoralties in larger towns like Perpignan in the south, more systematic analyses will be needed across localities and regions. The same goes for the Lega, with its wider reach in terms of holding executive office at the local and regional levels, including in cities such as Ferrara (where, anecdotally speaking, there are similar accounts as those encountered in Sant’Agata).

A striking similarity between Hayange and Sant’Agata is the coexistence of two faces: on the one hand, the far-right-led town hall cultivates a caring image with highly visible measures for improving or prettifying the local infrastructure; on the other hand, there is a far-right politics of suppressing by various means (including financial pressure) civil society initiatives deemed unpalatable, such as left-wing cultural or charity associations

What are the most significant strategies used by far-right politicians to approach trade unions at the local level?  

When it comes to trade unions specifically, the strategy in Sant’Agata seems to be more about bypassing or ignoring the trade unions to the extent possible, whereas Hayange has gotten considerable notoriety with reports in national-level media about widespread harassment of trade unionists in the public sector. In both cases, it seems clear that far-right local administrations are not interested in wooing established local trade unions with their deep roots in the industrial history of each region. Another question is to what extent far-right local governments try to form alternative (yellow) unions or analogous administration-friendly initiatives in civil society from their positions of power. While there are not so many clear-cut indications of this in the two cases examined, this is a question that deserves more systematic investigation across contexts.

What are the key contributions your paper brings to the field?

It bears emphasizing that this is an Early Results article, but even so, I think it provides numerous insights into how far-right parties govern in these two industrial towns and their relations to civil society. The interplay of a performatively enacted claim to serve the entire community with public goods on the one hand and the exclusion of undesirable elements of civil society on the other is a notable finding and may help us to understand the success of these far-right local administrations in getting re-elected on overwhelming majorities after their initially surprising victories with razor-thin margins in 2014. There is certainly a lot of potentials here for more wide-ranging comparative research on the basis of these results, both within the two countries in question and beyond.

ABOUT

Dr Seongcheol Kim is a postdoctoral researcher in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Kassel and a visiting researcher in the Center for Civil Society Research at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center. His research is centred on the application of post-foundational discourse theory for the study of party politics from a comparative European perspective, especially concerning nationalism, populism, and radical democracy.

MORE

Kim, S. (2023). Far-Right Local Governments and Civil Society: Findings from France and Italy. Political Studies Review, 21(1), 183–189. https://doi.org/10.1177/14789299221079990

Questions and production

Dr Eliza Kania, PSR/Brunel University London

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Issue 2/2023: Climate change, political participation, news parody, Eastern European politics and more

The whole issue 2/2023 can be found here.

CONTENTS

Articles

State of the Art – Review Articles

The Null Hypothesis

Early Results

RELATED CONTENT

PSR Interviews #17: Two and a Half Crises: Serbian Institutional Design as the Cause of Democratic Declines – Dušan Spasojević

As Dr Dušan Spasojević writes in his PSR Article  Two and a Half Crises: Serbian Institutional Design as the Cause of Democratic Declines: “On 5 October 2000, hundreds of thousands gathered in front of the Serbian parliament to pressure President Slobodan Milošević to accept the victory of the opposition candidate Vojislav Koštunica. Serbia was about to start its democratic transition after 10 years of Milošević’s authoritarian rule. Exactly 20 years later, Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić announced that his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) would form the government after successful negotiation with coalition partners. The SNS won 188 of 250 MPs. Future coalition partners added an additional 56 MPs to the majority, leaving only six MPs in the opposition. There are no other opposition representatives in the parliament because they boycotted the elections due to a lack of conditions for a free and fair process. It seems like a wasted 20 years.” In this interview, Dr Spasojević describes major challenges to the political system in Serbia.  

PSR: How would you characterise the current political regime in Serbia?

Dr Dušan Spasojević: The current regime in Serbia can be described as semi-presidentialism or premier-presidentialism; however, due to strong authoritarian tendencies in the last years (after 2016) and the general decline of democratic standards, the regime has become more personalised and presidentialized. This change’s fundamental mechanism is based on the fact that Aleksandar Vučić simultaneously occupies the position of the state and party president position. Furthermore, his party, the SNS, is a predominant party with divided, atomised, and marginalised opposition. On top of that, weak institutions, especially those that should produce checks and balances and executive oversight, cannot contain the power of the most popular leader. Therefore, the actual power is not in the hands of Prime Minister Ana Brnabic, who should be the key figure according to the constitution, but in Vučić hands, and they are not even trying to hide it. Vučić is perceived and presented as the decision maker, and he often directly orders ministries what to do and provides solutions.

What unique features does this version of semi-presidentialism have?

Serbia had a long tradition of semi-presidentialism, at least for post-communist state standards, as it was introduced at the beginning of the transition and party pluralism. The key features were not changed over time, although the president’s position is slightly weaker in the new constitution (2006), compared to the first one (1990). The interesting dynamic comes from the intersection between political and electoral systems – Serbia uses proportional representation with only one electoral district and no preferential voting (closed lists system), potentially leading to the centralization of parties and the dominance of party oligarchies. Therefore, the political system outcome depends on the balance between the parties and can have three different outcomes: presidential, prime-ministerial, and cohabitation. In the period after the fall of Milošević, the balance of power between leading parties (Democratic Party- DS and Democratic party of Serbia – DSS) fulfilled the potential of both the political and electoral systems. However, once the balance was lost, it created incentives for presidentialization, which in the Serbian case also meant autocratization. Of course, an important part of every new democracy is informal rules, filling the voids left by unfinished institutions and enabling the political elite to bend the rules in their favour.

The concentration of power in the hands of the state president led to a democratic backslide. It resulted from several years of decline and pressure on democratic institutions.

You claim that “Serbia had two major democratic crises (1990–2000 and 2016–2020) and one shorter but notable decline (2010–2012)”. Can you think about any general drivers that caused these breakdowns?

The two main crises are different by their cause – the first one, in the nineties, is mostly a consequence of an unfinished transition – Milošević used preemptive reform to usurp the power and then shaped institutions, including the political and electoral system, to maximize his gains. For Milošević, the institutional framework was endogen, but he shaped his opposition to some extent by these rules. The second crisis is the result of autocratization under Aleksandar Vučić, and we can compare this to a decline (2010-2012) under Boris Tadić. In both cases, a single party has key positions – the prime minister and president; in both cases, the party president becomes the key political figure and starts to centralize power. In the case of Boris Tadić, his Democratic party never reached predominant status and the opposition and coalition partners were strong enough to counterbalance. Regardless, there were significant elements of democratic backslide during that period, although the elections remained competitive, free and fair. In the case of Vučić and the SNS, as soon as the party started to win half of the votes (since 2014), it became the predominant actor, without a proper challenger. Another difference between Tadić and Vučić is that Tadić was also challenged by his own – especially from civil society, elite and academic circles that were perceived as his strongholds, which was enough to damage his electoral success.  

Protests against former premier & new president Vučić in Serbia, April 2017, source: Flickr, stefan.T

Let’s discuss the second crisis (2016–2020) and the current political situation under President Aleksandar Vučić. You claim that Serbia is endangered by a shift to competitive authoritarianism. What sparked this breakdown, what influenced its development and how’s the situation after 2020?

This shift seems to have been completed – Levitsky and Way classified Serbia as competitive authoritarianism again, the same as during the Milošević regime. Freedom house and V Dem also see Serbia as a flawed, hybrid democracy. The concentration of power in the hands of the state president led to a democratic backslide. It resulted from several years of decline and pressure on democratic institutions. Even weak and new democracies can not be defeated easily; in Serbia, it took five years, until the presidential elections in 2017, to gain control over key institutions, including oversight and regulatory bodies. This means that power under the control of an autocrat is not only in formal institutions but also in those of ‘secondary’ importance. In other words, the space for the opposition or civil society is constantly shrinking. Post-2020 did not change much as Covid19 outbreak enhanced authoritarian tendencies, but also provided some space for the opposition.  

Of course, Vučić is not Milošević and the old regime has not return in full power. Levitsky and Way called this new competitive authoritarianism – the regime that has been adapted to a new time, with nuanced and more careful autocratization. For example, there is no censorship or police harassment of the journalists and media; a new competitive authoritarian regime will buy problematic outlets or invest funds in others and made it unfair competition for market income. Alternatively, they will make some other indirect pressure. The international landscape has also been changed – in contrast to the conflictual relations of an international community with Milošević, current Serbian leadership remains formally pro-EU and receives support for their cooperation during the Kosovo talks or migrant crisis. The Russian aggression on Ukraine changed the situation to some extent and opened some options for the entire western Balkans – the pressure from the outside is growing, but the carrot is also getting more significant. However, it is yet unclear if there can be a balance between a realistic approach in foreign relations and a necessity for the democratization of  Serbia and other regional countries.   

What were the societal responses to these crises? What are the major manifestations o social discontent?

Serbia has a proud history of democratic struggle – it lasted a decade, but people never give up, even when faced with an increasingly repressive regime. However, we now live in a different world. It seems that autocratization does not produce discontent that can be easily politically articulated. In the last ten years, there were five protests waves, none of which had crucial results. Those were protests against regime violence, students and environmental protest, covid19 protests, and protests against Belgarde Waterfront Project. All of them lasted for a few weeks, but had so significant consequences. Of course, the ruling Serbian Progressive Party significantly influences the media system. It reduces the time available for the opposition and protests, but still there are enough media outlets available for alternative voices.

Environmental issues drove the last large protests, but the regime efficiently accepted the demands and reduced the damage. Some green parties used the opportunity and entered the parliament in 2022, but it can not be a key issue against the SNS. Also, many environmental activists perceive themselves as non-political and create distance between the movement and formal political parties. This is a common characteristic of protest politics in Serbia, and it reflects a lack of trust in parties and politicians.      

Serbia has a proud history of democratic struggle – it lasted a decade, but people never give up, even when faced with an increasingly repressive regime.

On the other hand: what is the reasoning of  Vučić’s supporters?

Vučić supporters are more conservative and authoritarian part of Serbian society and, therefore, less interested in the rule of law or democracy between the elections. They see European Union as a community of wealthy nations, not a community gathered around values. Recent events, such as Brexit or the success of euro-sceptic leaders like Orban or Meloni, fortified these beliefs. So, as long as Vučić performs decently in economic terms and does not lead the country into conflicts with the west, they are satisfied. Also, the important part is related to national issues, like Kosovo or the Republic of Srpska, which trump the rule of law or media freedom for most SNS voters. Of course, the SNS domination in the media sphere prevents these views from being challenged, and most voters are subject to strong one-way propaganda.

Are there, in your opinion, any reforms or safety mechanisms that would prevent authoritarian shifts in the future?

No, I don’t believe that there can be mechanisms that can protect democracy under intense illiberal pressure if the citizens are not willing to defend it or punish the autocratic leaders in elections.

Of course, more vital institutions and a more rooted political system could resist longer than Serbian democracy. However, I would argue that no rules can prevent the Hungarian or Polish scenario if there is a robust and popular leader and predominant party. Protests currently going on in Israel are examples of this illiberal tendency that can have long-term consequences, but we see a strong reaction from the opposition and civil society.

What are the key contributions your paper brings to the field?

It represents a comprehensive overview of the democratization process from the institutional perspective, which balances between being too narrow and specific (aimed at an audience interested in institutional rules only) and being over-flexible due to changes in circumstances or volatility of the party system. Additionally, it provides an analytical framework that merges the political and electoral system with dynamic elements of the party system and cleavage structures. It also sheds some light on Serbia, an under-researched state, together with most post-Yugoslav and western Balkans countries, especially when compared to central-European and Baltic states.  

ABOUT

Dušan Spasojević is an associate professor at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Belgrade. His main fields of interest are political parties, civil society and the post-communist democratization process.

MORE

Two and a Half Crises: Serbian Institutional Design as the Cause of Democratic Declines – Dušan Spasojević, 2022 (sagepub.com)

Questions and production

Dr Eliza Kania, PSR/Brunel University London

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The Best Paper Award 2022 – the winner

We are happy to announce that the PSR Best Paper Award for 2022 goes to Stephanie Stark and Dr Sofía Collignon for their PSR research article: Sexual Predators in Contest for Public Office: How the American Electorate Responds to News of Allegations of Candidates Committing Sexual Assault and Harassment.

The article analyses the effect that allegations of sexual assault or harassment have on the electoral success of American politicians. The authors write: “Using an original survey experiment, we find that, on average, American citizens are less likely to support a candidate accused of sexual assault or sexual harassment. However, not all voters do so to the same magnitude. We find that Democrats are significantly less likely to support a candidate that faces such allegations. Republicans do not strongly penalize candidates facing allegations of sexual assault or harassment, especially if the candidate is identified as a Republican.”

Let’s bring up some stats about the winning article:

  • The article has reached a record-breaking number of downloads and reads: 63 204.
  • The research was also featured in GB News:

Congratulations!

PSR Podcast #20: Caroline V. Leicht, Nightly News or Nightly Jokes? News Parody as a Form of Political Communication: A Review of the Literature

“Studies have shown that 0ne in four Americans received their election news from late-night comedy shows. And yet the literature on news parody still has significant limitations” – says Caroline V. Leicht.

The author claims that although news parody as a form of political communication has been at the centre of various studies, some “limitations and gaps in the literature remain substantially unexplored”. The podcast is based on Caroline V. Leicht’s PSR article: Nightly News or Nightly Jokes? News Parody as a Form of Political Communication: A Review of the Literature.

MORE

Leicht, C. V. (2022). Nightly News or Nightly Jokes? News Parody as a Form of Political Communication: A Review of the Literature. Political Studies Review. https://doi.org/10.1177/14789299221100339

Caroline V Leicht received her MA from the University of Liverpool and is currently a PhD researcher at the University of Southampton. Her research focuses on political satire as a form of political communication in electoral contexts in the United States.

production

Dr Eliza Kania, Brunel University London

The Null Hypothesis

Many research projects produce results where the hypotheses are rejected, but where the results are nonetheless interesting. PSR publishes papers where there was a sound theoretical reason for stipulating hypotheses but where these hypotheses had to be rejected.

Papers in the Null Hypothesis section are limited to  8000 words inclusive of all notes and references.

THE NULL HYPOTHESIS PSR PAPERS

2023

2022

2021

2020

More about article types

PSR Interviews #16: Partisanship Versus Democracy: Voting in Turkey’s Competitive Authoritarian Elections – Professor Tijen Demirel-Pegg, Professor Aaron Dusso

“The annulment of the 31 March 2019 elections in Istanbul and the subsequently re-run 23 June 2019 elections is a blatant example of undemocratic behaviour by political leaders” – claim Professor Tijen Demirel-Pegg and Professor Aaron Dusso. Learn more about whether votes care about the anti-democratic behaviours of their political leaders, and read our interview below. It contains an analysis of the political situation in Turkey and is based on the PSR original research article: Partisanship Versus Democracy: Voting in Turkey’s Competitive Authoritarian Elections – Tijen Demirel-Pegg, Aaron Dusso, 2022.

Political Studies Review: To give us a bit more context, how would you characterise the current political landscape and regime in Turkey?

Professor Tijen Demirel-Pegg and Professor Aaron Dusso: Although an ostensibly multi-party regime, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has held power since 2002. AKP’s leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, served as the Prime Minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014 and has held the presidency since then. In 2017, President Erdoğan tightened his grip on power as a result of a constitutional referendum that changed the political system from a parliamentary to an executive presidential system with weak checks and balances

Your paper focused on the local elections of 23 June 2019. Why were these elections particularly relevant?

The annulment of the 31 March 2019 elections in Istanbul and the subsequently re-run 23 June 2019 elections is a blatant example of undemocratic behaviour by political leaders. We wanted to understand if voters cared about such a clear violation of democratic norms when casting their votes. When AKP’s incumbent for the mayor of Istanbul, Binali Yıldırım, lost the March elections to the opposition candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu, AKP refused to concede its defeat. Under the leadership of President Erdoğan, AKP challenged İmamoğlu’s narrow victory and pressured Turkey’s electoral authority to overturn the Istanbul elections, citing the inclusion of non-civil servants in supervisory committees at the polling booths. The electoral authority sided with AKP and called for a re-run of the Istanbul elections on 23 June 2019.

In 2017, President Erdoğan tightened his grip on power as a result of a constitutional referendum that changed the political system from a parliamentary to an executive presidential system with weak checks and balances.

You claim that the authoritarian shift in Turkey has been progressing for more than a decade. What is the timeframe of this shift and what were the major backslides from good democratic practices?

The first signs of democratic backsliding date back to the mid-2000s when the AKP government began to limit the freedom of the press. Over time, curtailments of civil liberties, further censorship of media outlets and tilting the playing field in favour of AKP candidates throughout election campaigns took a toll on the democratic system. Following a failed coup attempt in 2016, President Erdoğan declared an emergency law and purged thousands of military and administrative personnel from governmental bodies. After the referendum that changed Turkey’s political system to a presidential system, power has become almost exclusively concentrated in President Erdoğan’s hands. Media censorship, curtailment of civil liberties, and interference with judicial processes are ongoing, if not intensifying, and have tainted Turkish democracy significantly during AKP rule.

Solidarity Demonstration for Gezi Park – Taksim Square, Istanbul, Turkey, 2013. Source: Rasande Tyskar, Flickr

Could you tell us more about your research methodology?

A week after the 23 June elections, we administered an online survey of eligible voters in Istanbul. We used questions from the American National Elections Survey and European Social Survey and translated them into Turkish while also modifying them to the Turkish context. We analyzed the survey responses by using categorical data analysis (binomial and multinomial logit analyses.

How strongly have concerns for democracy been reflected in voting preferences in Turkey? Do these differ from the standard scholarly understanding of that topic?

Scholars have long established that partisanship, idealogy, and the economic context are the most reliable predictors of voting behaviour. Turkey is no exception to these findings. Scholars examining voting preferences in Turkey have also found that Turkish voters behave in a similar way to voters in other electoral contexts. Alternatively, democracy scholars have suggested that elections are one of the most important bulwarks of democracy, keeping leaders with authoritarian tendencies in check. Several scholars, such as Milan Svolik (2020) have shown that in a sharply polarized political context, voters are willing to turn a blind eye to democratic concerns and vote based on partisanship or personal interests. Given that AKP has won numerous elections since they came to power in 2002 while leading the country into a gradual democratic backsliding, concerns for democracy have not been a driving force for the majority of Turkish voters.

The popular narrative was perhaps too optimistic. Our analysis shows that partisanship, and not concerns for democracy, was the primary driving force behind İmamoğlu’s victory in the second round of Istanbul elections in June.

You write: “The popular narrative within and outside of Turkey often portrayed these elections as motivated by concerns about democratic backsliding after the nullification of the first election in March.” Were these narratives correct? What drives voters to challenge the AKP?

The popular narrative was perhaps too optimistic. Our analysis shows that partisanship, and not concerns for democracy, was the primary driving force behind İmamoğlu’s victory in the second round of Istanbul elections in June. Our study aligns with several scholars, such as Milan Svolik (2020), who have also suggested that elections are one of the major bulwarks of democracy, keeping authoritarian leaders in check. Our analysis shows that even in the context of a clear violation of democratic norms, voters cast their ballots based on their partisanship and not democratic concerns.

What are the key contributions your paper brings to the field?

Our study is one of the few individual-level analyses of the concern for democracy in a polarized, competitive authoritarian context. Our study shows that the assumption that elections are a reliable check against leaders who are willing to violate democratic norms may not necessarily hold. We also found that economic dissatisfaction was not an important driving factor in the June 2019 elections, even though Turkish citizens had already been feeling the negative effects of an economic recession at the time of the elections. The effects of economic dissatisfaction on voting behaviour require further research in polarized and semi-authoritarian countries.

ABOUT

Tijen Demirel-Pegg is an Associate Professor of Political Science at IUPUI. Her research interests focus on contentious politics, political violence, human rights, and authoritarian regimes, with an emphasis on dissident-state interactions.

Aaron Dusso is an Associate Professor and Department Chair of Political Science at IUPUI. His work focuses primarily on the political psychology of electoral behaviour, with an emphasis on the Big Five personality traits, authoritarianism, civic aptitude, and correct voting.

MORE

Demirel-Pegg, T., & Dusso, A. (2022). Partisanship Versus Democracy: Voting in Turkey’s Competitive Authoritarian Elections. Political Studies Review, 20(4), 648–666. https://doi.org/10.1177/14789299211030446

Questions and production

Dr Eliza Kania, PSR/Brunel University London

SUGGESTED CONTENT

PSR Interviews #15: Mathis Ebbinghaus,  Institutional Consequences of the Black Lives Matter Movement: Towards Diversity in Elite Education

Has the Black Lives Matter movement influenced not only public opinion but also HE institutions? Mathis Ebbinghaus and Sihao Huang suggest that there is a temporal association between these time series: the enrolment of Black students and the salience of BLM. Despite some concerns, it did not affect broader trends towards greater representation of other minority students. Learn more in our interview below and read the PSR article: Institutional Consequences of the Black Lives Matter Movement: Towards Diversity in Elite Education.

Political Studies Review: You claim that “universities expressed their commitment to racial diversity, but university policies aimed at rectifying historic disadvantages were also met with criticism.” What is the situation of universities in the US in terms of racial diversity?

Mathis Ebbinghaus: Yes, that’s right. Racial diversity is one of the big contentious topics in university politics – perhaps because it relates to the meritocratic promise of the American dream. Proponents argue that greater racial diversity reflects fairer conditions that enable historically disadvantaged groups to compete. In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, hundreds of universities expressed their commitment to campus equity efforts. Critics are concerned that greater racial diversity comes at the cost of new racial discrimination against academically successful students. In 2020, the enrolment-to-population ratios of Asian students are 4.3 and 3.68 in elite universities and medical schools respectively. Hispanic and Black students are underrepresented compared to their representation in the general population whereas enrolment rates for White students reflect their representation in the US population. In our article, we examine how Black and Asian student representation has changed over time. Contrary to concerns that Asian student representation has declined as a result of growing enrolment rates of Black students, we observe a steady increase in the representation of Asian students alongside increases in the representation of Hispanic students over the past decade. BLM coincided with increased Black enrolment in highly selective universities. It did not affect broader trends towards greater representation of other minority students.

What are the major challenges for policies to efficiently enhance racial diversity in the HE sector?

There certainly are numerous challenges to enhancing racial diversity. As far as our research is concerned, the positive association between racial diversity and Black Lives Matter activism suggests that it will be an important challenge for social justice activists to continuously convince university staff of the worthiness of their claims and to channel the momentum of 2020 into institutional politics that fall to some extent outside the purview of legal obligations.

BLM coincided with increased Black enrolment in highly selective universities. It did not affect broader trends towards greater representation of other minority students.

Based on your research, has the Black Lives Matter protest movement influenced the HE sector in the US at the macro level?

Yes, the data that we analyzed lend credence to this interpretation. In elite education, the shares of Black students in elite undergraduate and medical schools have coincided with the growing influence of the BLM movement. Future research should investigate the same question with methods that allow for more causal interpretations.

Black Lives Matter protest, London, June 2020, phot. E. Kania

You aim at identifying the measurable impacts the BLM movement has had on elite educational institutions. Would you elaborate on your data and methods?

Certainly. But let me just stress again that it would be premature to interpret our findings causally. What we do show is that there is a temporal association between two time series: the enrolment of Black students and the salience of BLM. To measure the salience of the BLM movement we use the GDELT database that has data on TV coverage of 109 local and national television channels. Our university enrolment data span the years from 2011 to 2020. Data on medical school enrolments by race cover twelve years from 2009 to 2020. Both applicant and enrolment numbers were obtained directly from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).

One of the effects that you describe is the increase in the enrolment of Black students. How can you explain that?

There are many compelling explanations that could account for this trend. We suggest that the Black Lives Matter movement may have contributed to increases in the enrolment of Black students both directly through interactions between activists and members of admission committees and indirectly through affecting the universities’ broader outlook. Awareness of the university’s values and the presence of passionate students who measure the university by their actions may create conformity pressures among admission board members. In future research, we hope to test these social mechanisms more directly.

We suggest that the Black Lives Matter movement may have contributed to increases in the enrolment of Black student both directly through interactions between acticsts and members of admission committees and indirectly through affecting the universities’ broader outlook.

Have any inter-sectional diversity challenges appeared? Were there any critical voices raised and what would be your response to them?

Yes, there were. Some critics feared that increasing Black student representation would disadvantage other racial groups. Our analysis shows that the representation of Asian students grew steadily for both types of elite education ­– the opposite of what critics feared. The representation of Hispanic students increased as well, which leaves us with a clear picture: The spikes in Black student representation following spikes in the salience of the BLM movement did not affect broader trends towards greater representation among other minority groups. While enrolment rates for the three largest minority groups in the US have increased over the past decade, enrolment rates for White students continuously decreased.

What are the key contributions your paper brings to the field?

There is more and more evidence that the Black Lives Matter movement shaped public opinion and policy. But movements can also have institutional consequences. Although studied less often, they are no less important. By focusing on the relationship between the Black Lives Matter movement and racial admission practices in elite educational institutions, we contribute to scholarship on the institutional consequences of social movements.

Black Lives Matter protest, source: Pixabay

ABOUT

Mathis Ebbinghaus is a DPhil candidate in sociology at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. His research is in political sociology and he investigates social movements and extraordinary social action. 

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Institutional Consequences of the Black Lives Matter Movement: Towards Diversity in Elite Education – Mathis Ebbinghaus, Sihao Huang, 2022 (sagepub.com)

Questions and production

Dr Eliza Kania, PSR/Brunel University London

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